Ladysmith the Diary of a Siege by HW Nevinson

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Title: Ladysmith
The Diary of a Siege

Author: H. W. Nevinson

Release Date: August 27, 2005 [EBook #16603]

Language: English

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H.W. NEVINSON

LADYSMITH

THE DIARY OF A SIEGE

BY

H.W. NEVINSON

AUTHOR OF "THE THIRTY DAYS' WAR"

METHUEN & CO.

36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

LONDON

1900

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
PAGE

CONTENTS
v

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
vii

NOTE
viii

I.
ON THE EDGE
1

II.
AT THE BRITISH FRONT
9

III.
THE FIRST WEEK'S WAR
20

IV.
BATTLE OF ELANDS LAAGTE
30

V.
BATTLE OF TINTA INYONI
41

VI.
THE REVERSE AT NICHOLSON'S NEK
51

VII.
HEMMED IN
61

VIII.
TRAGEDY AND COMEDY
72

IX.
INCIDENTS, ACCIDENTS, AND REALITIES
83

X.
ENNUI ENLIVENED BY SUDDEN DEATH
100

XI.
FLASHES FROM BULLER
129

XII.
THE NIGHT SURPRISE ON GUN HILL
138

XIII.
THE CAPTURE OF SURPRISE HILL
156

XIV.
THE SEASON OF PEACE AND GOODWILL
176

XV.
SICKNESS, DEATH, AND A NEW YEAR
194

XVI.
THE GREAT ATTACK
211

XVII.
A PAUSE AND A RENEWAL
231

XVIII.
"WITHIN MEASURABLE DISTANCE"
250

XIX.
HOPE DEFERRED
265

XX.
SUN AND FEVER
279

XXI.
RELIEVED AT LAST
291

APPENDIX
299

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR
MAP OF LADYSMITH AND NEIGHBOURHOOD
GENERAL SIR GEORGE STEWART WHITE, V.C., G.C.I.E., G.C.B., G.C.S.I.
PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF ELANDS LAAGTE
LOMBARD'S KOP

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IMPERIAL LIGHT HORSE SHELTERS
THE DRIFT AND WATERING-PLACE
BULWAN
HOSPITAL IN TOWN HALL AFTER A SHELL
BREECH BLOCK FROM GUN HILL
A PICTURESQUE RUIN
HEADQUARTERS AFTER A 96LB. SHELL
EFFECT OF 96LB. SHELL ON A PRIVATE HOUSE
SPECIMEN OF BOER SHELLS
INDIAN BAKERY
GENERAL RT. HON. SIR R.H. BULLER, V.C., G.C.B., K.C.M.G., K.C.B.

(photograph by KNIGHT, Aldershot)

SKETCH PLAN OF COUNTRY SOUTH AND WEST OF LADYSMITH

NOTE

This book has been reprinted, by kind permission of the Proprietors of the Daily Chronicle, from the full text of the
Letters sent to the paper.

LADYSMITH

THE DIARY OF A SIEGE

CHAPTER I

ON THE EDGE

NEWCASTLE, NATAL, Thursday, October 5, 1899.

Late last Sunday night I found myself slowly crawling towards the front from Pretoria in a commandeered train
crammed full of armed Boers and their horses. I had rushed from the Cape to quiet little Bloemfontein, the centre of one
of the best administered States in the world, where the heads of the nation in the intervals of discussing war proudly
showed me their pianos, their little gardens, little libraries of English books, little museums of African beasts and Greek
coins, and all their other evidences of advancing culture. Then on to Pretoria, the same kind of a town on a larger and
richer scale—trim bungalow houses, for the most part, spread out among gardens full of roses, honeysuckle, and
syringa. But at the station all day and night the scene was not idyllic. Every hour train after train moved away—stores
and firewood in front, horses next, and luggage vans for the men behind. The partings from lovers and wives and
children must be imagined. They are bad enough to witness when our own soldiers go to the front. But these men are
not soldiers at all. Each of them came direct from his home in the town or on some isolated farm. They rode up, dressed
just in their ordinary clothes, but for the slung Mauser and the full cartridge belt over the shoulder or round the waist.
Except for a few gunners, there is no uniform in the Boer Army. Even the officers can hardly be distinguished from
ordinary farmers. The only thing that could be called uniform is the broad-brimmed soft hat of grey or brown. But all
Boers wear it. It is generally very stained and dirty, and invariably a rusty crape band is wound about the crown. For
the Boer, like the English poorer classes, has large quantities of relations, and one of them is always dying.

By the courtesy of the Pretorian Government I had secured room in the guard's van for myself and a companion, who
was equally anxious to cross the Natal frontier before the firing began, and that was expected at any moment. In the van
with us were a score of farmers from Middleburg way, their contingent occupying four trains with about 800 men and
horses. For the most part they were fine tall men with shaggy light beards, reminding one of Yorkshire farmers, but
rougher and not so well dressed. Most of them could speak some English, and many had Scotch or English relatives.
They lay on the floor or sat on the edge of the van, talking quietly and smoking enormous pipes. All deeply regretted the
war, regretted the farm left behind just when spring and rain are coming, and they were full of foreboding for the women
and children left at the mercy of Kaffirs. There was no excitement or shouting or bravado of any kind. So we travelled

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into the night, the monotony only broken by one violent collision which shook us all flat on the floor, while arms and
stores fell crashing upon us. In the silent pause which followed, whilst we wondered if we were dead, I could hear the
Kaffirs chattering in their mud huts close by, and in the distance a cornet was playing "Home, Sweet Home," with
variations.

It must have been the next evening, as we were waiting three or four hours, as usual, for the line to clear, that General
Joubert came up in a special train. A few young men and boys in ordinary clothes formed his "staff." The General
himself wore the usual brown slouch hat with crape band, and a blue frock coat, not luxuriously new. His beard was
quite white, but his long straight hair was still more black than grey. The brown sallow face was deeply wrinkled and
marked, but the dark brown eyes were still bright, and looked out upon the world with a kind of simplicity mingled with
shrewdness, or perhaps some subtler quality. He spoke English with a piquant lack of grammar and misuse of words.
When I travelled with him next day, almost the first thing he said to me was, "The heart of my soul is bloody with
sorrow." His moderating influence on the Kruger Government is well known, and he described to me how he had done
his utmost for peace. But he also described how bit by bit England had pushed the Boers out of their inheritance, and
taken advantage of them in every conference and native war. He was particularly hurt that the Queen had taken no
notice of the long letter or pamphlet he wrote to her on the situation. And, by the way, I often observed what regard
most Boers appear to feel for the Queen personally. They constantly couple her name with Gladstone's when they wish
to say anything nice about English politics. As to the General's views on the crisis, there would be little new to say. Till
the present war his hope had been for a South African Confederacy under English protection—the Cape, Natal, Free
State, and Transvaal all having equal rights and local self-government. He knows well enough the inner causes of the
present evils. "But now," he said, "we can only leave it to God. If it is His will that the Transvaal perish, we can only do
our best."

At Zandspruit, the scene of the old Sand River Convention, the whole Boer camp crowded to the station to greet the
national hero, and he was at once surrounded by a herd of farmers, shaking his hands and patting him warmly on the
back. It was a respectful but democratic greeting. The Boer Army—if for a moment we may give that name to an
unorganised collection of volunteers—is entirely democratic. The men are nominally under field cornets, commanders,
and the General. But they openly boast that on the field the authority and direction of officers do not count for much,
and they go pretty much as they please. The camp, though not in the least disorderly, was confused and irregular—
stores, firewood, horses, cattle, and tents strewn about the enormous veldt, almost haphazard, though the districts were
kept fairly well separate. Provisions were plenty, but the cooking was bad. It took three days to get bread made, and
some detachments had to eat their meat raw. I think there were not more than 10,000 or less than 7,000 men in the
camp at that time, but the commandeered trains crawled up every two or three hours with their new loads.

By a piece of good fortune we succeeded in crossing the frontier in an open coal-truck. The border-line runs about six
miles north of Majuba and Laing's Nek, the last Boer village being Volksrust, and Charlestown the first English. The
scenery changes rapidly; the high, bare veldt of the Southern Transvaal is at once left behind, and we enter the broad
valley of Natal, sloping steadily down to the sea and becoming richer and more tropical as it descends. All regular traffic
had stopped three days before, but now and then a refugee train came up to the frontier and transhipped its miserable
crowd. Fugitives of every nation have been hurrying to the railway in hopes of escape. The stations far down into Natal
are constantly surrounded with patient groups, waiting, waiting for an empty truck. Hindoos from Bombay and Madras
with their golden nose-rings and brilliant silks sit day and night waiting side by side with coal-black Kaffirs in their
blankets, or "blue-blooded" Zulus who refuse to hide much of their deep chocolate skin, showing a kind of purple
bloom like a plum. The patient indifference with which these savages will sit unmoved through any fortune and let time
run over them, is almost like the solemn calm of nature's own laws. The whites are restless and probably suffer more.
Many were in extreme misery. Three or four young children died on the journey. One poor woman became a mother in
the train just after the frontier, and died, leaving the baby alive. At the border I found many English and Scotch families,
who had driven across the veldt from Ermelo, surrendering all their possessions. All spoke of the good treatment the
Boers had shown them on the journey, even when the waggon had outspanned for the night close to the Boer camp. I
came down to Newcastle with a Caithness stonemason and his family. They had lost house, home, and livelihood. They
had even abandoned their horses and waggon on the veldt. The woman regretted her piano, but what really touched her
most was that she had to wash her baby in cold water at the lavatory basin, and he had always been accustomed to
warm. So we stand on the perilous edge and suffer variously.

CHAPTER II

AT THE BRITISH FRONT

LADYSMITH, NATAL, Wednesday, October 11, 1899.

Ladysmith breathes freely to-day, but a week ago she seemed likely to become another Lucknow. Of line battalions
only the Liverpools were here, besides two batteries of field artillery, some of the 18th Hussars, and the 5th Lancers. If
Kruger or Joubert had then allowed the Boers encamped on the Free State border to have their own way, no one can
say what might have happened. Our force would have been outnumbered at least four to one, and probably more. In

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event of disaster the Boers would have seized an immense quantity of military stores accumulated in the camp, and at
the railway station. What is worse, they would have isolated the still smaller force lately thrown forward to Dundee, so
as to break the strong defensive position of the Biggarsberg, which cuts off the north of Natal, and can only be
traversed by three difficult passes. Dundee was just as much threatened from the east frontier beyond the Buffalo River,
where the Transvaal Boers of the Utrecht and Vryheid district have been mustered in strong force for nearly a fortnight
now. With our two advanced posts "lapped up" (the phrase is a little musty here), our stores lost, and our reputation
among the Dutch and native populations entirely ruined, the campaign would have begun badly.

For the Boers it was a fine strategic opportunity, and they were perfectly aware of that. But "the Old Man," as they
affectionately call the President, had his own prudent reasons for refusing it. "Let the enemy fire first," he says, like the
famous Frenchman, and so far he has been able to hold the most ardent of the encamped burghers in check. "If he
should not be able!" we kept saying. We still say it morning and evening, but the pinch of the danger is passed. Last
Thursday night the 1st Devons and the 19th Hussars began to arrive and the crisis ended. Yesterday before daybreak
half the Gordons came. We have now a mountain battery and three batteries of field artillery, the 19th Hussars (the 18th
having gone forward to Dundee), besides the 5th Lancers (the "Irish Lancers"), who are in faultless condition, and a
considerable mixed force of the Natal Volunteers. Of these last, the Carbineers are perhaps the best, and generally
serve as scouts towards the Free State frontier. But all have good repute as horsemen, marksmen, and guides, and at
present they are the force which the Boers fear most. They are split up into several detachments—the Border Mounted
Rifles, the Natal Mounted Rifles (from Durban), the Imperial Light Horse, the Natal Police, and the Umvoti Mounted
Rifles, who are chiefly Dutch. Then of infantry there are the Natal Royal Rifles (only about 150 strong), the Durban
Light Infantry, and the Natal Field Artillery. As far as I can estimate, the total Natal Volunteer force will not exceed
2,000, but they are well armed, are accustomed to the Boer method of warfare, and will be watched with interest.
Unhappily, many of them here are already suffering from the change of life and food in camp. That is inevitable when
volunteers first take the field.

But Ladysmith has an evil reputation besides. Last year the troops here were prostrated with enteric. There is a little
fever and a good deal of dysentery even now among the regulars. The stream by the camp is condemned, and all water
is supplied in tiny rations from pumps. The main permanent camp is built of corrugated iron, practically the sole building
material in South Africa, and quite universal for roofs, so that the country has few "architectural features" to boast of.
The cavalry are quartered in the tin huts, but the Liverpools, Devons, Gordons, and Volunteers have pitched their own
tents, and a terrible time they are having of it. Dust is the curse of the place. We remember the Long Valley as an
Arcadian dell. Veterans of the Soudan recall the black sand-storms with regretful sighs. The thin, red dust comes
everywhere, and never stops. It blinds your eyes, it stops your nose, it scorches your throat till the invariable shilling for
a little glass of any liquid seems cheap as dirt. It turns the whitest shirt brown in half an hour, it creeps into the works of
your watch and your bowels. It lies in a layer mixed with flies on the top of your rations. The white ants eat away the
flaps of the tents, and the men wake up covered with dust, like children in a hayfield. Even mules die of it in convulsions.
It was in this land that the ostrich developed its world-renowned digestive powers; and no wonder.

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MAP OF LADYSMITH AND NEIGHBOURHOOD

The camp stands on a barren plain, nearly two miles north-west of the town—if we may so call the one straight road of
stores and tin-roofed bungalows. Low, flat-topped hills surround it, bare and rocky. But to understand the country it is
best to climb into the mountains of the long Drakensberg, which forms the Free State frontier in a series of strangely
jagged and precipitous peaks, and at one place, by the junction with Basutoland, runs up to 11,000 feet. Last Sunday I
went into the Free State through Van Reenen's Pass, over which a little railway has been carried by zigzag "reverses."
The summit is 5,500 feet above the sea, or nearly 2,000 feet above Ladysmith. From the steep slopes, in places almost
as green as the Lowlands or Yorkshire fells, I looked south-east far over Natal—a parched, brown land like the desert
beyond the Dead Sea, dusty bits of plain broken up by line upon line of bare red mountain. It seemed a poor country to
make a fuss about, yet as South Africa goes, it is rich and even fertile in its way. Indeed, on the reddest granite
mountain one never fails to find multitudes of flowering plants and pasturage for thinnish sheep. Across the main range,
Van Reenen's is the largest and best known pass. The old farmer who gave it the name is living there still and bitterly
laments the chance of war. But there are other passes too, any of which may suddenly become famous now—Olivier's
Hoek, near the gigantic Mont aux Sources, Bezuidenhaut, Netherby, Tintwa, and (north of Van Reenen's) De Beer's
Pass, Cundycleugh, Muller's, and Botha's, beyond which the range ends with the frontier at Majuba. Three or four of
these passes are crossed by waggon roads, but Van Reenen's has the only railway. The frontier, marked by a barbed
wire fence across the summit of the pass, must be nearly forty miles from Ladysmith, but from the cliffs above it, the
little British camp can be seen like a toy through this clear African air, and Boer sentries watch it all day, ready to signal
the least movement of its troops, betrayed by the dust. Their own main force is distributed in camps along the hills well
beyond the nine-miles' limit ordained by the Convention. The largest camp is said to be further north at Nelson's Kop,
but all the camps are very well hidden, though in one place I saw about 500 of the horses trying to graze. The rains are
late, and the grass on the high plateau of the Free State is not so good as on the Natal slopes of the pass. The Boer
commandoes suffer much from want of it. When all your army consists of mounted infantry, forage counts next to food.

At present the Van Reenen Railway ends at Harrismith, an arid but cheerful little town at the foot of the great cliffs of
the Plaatburg. It boasts its racecourse, golf-links, musical society, and some acquaintance with the German poets. The
Scotch made it their own, though a few Dutch, English, and other foreigners were allowed to remain on sufferance.
Now unhappily the place is almost deserted, and Burns himself would hardly find a welcome there. In the Free State
every resident may be commandeered, and I believe forty-eight hours counts as "residence." You see the advantage of
an extended franchise. The penalty for escape is confiscation of property, and five years' imprisonment or £500 fine, if
caught. The few British who remained have had all their horses, carts, and supplies taken. Some are set to serve the
ambulance; a few will be sent to watch Basutoland; but most of them have abandoned their property and risked the
escape to Natal, slipping down the railway under bales or built up in the luggage vans like nuns in a brick wall. In one
case the Boers commandeered three wool trucks on the frontier. Those trucks were shunted on to a siding for the night,
and in the morning the wool looked strangely shrunk somehow. Yet it was not wool that had been taken out and

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smuggled through by the next train. For Scot helps Scot, and it is Scots who work the railway. It pays to be a Scot out
here. I have only met one Irishman, and he was unhappy.

But for the grotesque side of refugee unhappiness one should see the native train which comes down every night from
Newcastle way, and disappears towards Maritzburg and safety. Native workers of every kind—servants, labourers,
miners—are throwing up their places and rushing towards the sea. The few who can speak English say, "Too plenty
bom-bom!" as sufficient explanation of their panic. The Government has now fitted the open trucks with cross-seats and
side-bars for their convenience, and so, hardly visible in the darkness, the black crowd rolls up to the platform. Instantly
black hands with pinkish palms are thrust through all the bars, as in a monkey-house. Black heads jabber and click with
excitement. White teeth suddenly appear from nowhere. It is for bread and tin-meats they clamour, and they are willing
to pay. But a loaf costs a shilling. Everything costs a shilling here, unless it costs half-a-crown; and Natal grows fat on
war. A shilling for a bit of bread! What is the good of Christianity? So the dusky hands are withdrawn, and the poor
Zulu with untutored maw goes starving on. But if any still doubt our primitive ancestry, let them hear that Zulu's outcries
of pain, or watch the fortunate man who has really got a loaf, and gripping it with both hands, gnaws it in his corner,
turning his suspicious eyes to right and left with fear.

The air is full of wild rumours. A boy riding over Laing's Nek saw 1,000 armed Boers feeding their horses on
Manning's farm. The Boers have been seen at a Dutch settlement this side Van Reenen's. Yesterday a section of the
Gordons on their arrival were sent up to look at them in an armoured train. It is thought that war will be proclaimed to-
day. That has been thought every day for a fortnight past, and the land buzzes with lies which may at any moment be
true.

Half the Manchesters have just marched in to trumpet and drum. When I think of those ragged camps of peasants just
over the border the pomp and circumstance seem all on one side.

Friday, October 13, 1899.

So it has begun at last, for good or evil. Here we think it began yesterday, just at the very moment when Sir George
White arrived. Late at night scouts brought news of masses of Boers crossing the Tintwa Pass, and going into laager
with their waggons only fifteen miles away to the west. The men stood to their arms, and long before light we were
marching steadily forward along the Van Reenen road. First came the Liverpools, then the three batteries of Field
Artillery with a mountain battery, then the Devons and the Gordons. The Manchesters acted as rear-guard, and the
Dublin Fusiliers, who were hurried down from Dundee by train, came late, and then were hurried back again. The
column took all its stores and forage for five days in a train of waggons (horses, mules, and oxen) about two miles long.
When day broke we saw the great mountains on the Basuto border, gleaming with snow like the Alps. Far in front the
cavalry—the 5th Lancers and 19th Hussars with the Natal Volunteers—were sweeping over the patches of plain and
struggling up the hills in search of that reported laager. But not a Boer of it was to be seen. At nine o'clock, having
advanced eight or nine miles, the whole column took up a strong position, with all its baggage and train in faultless
order, and went to sleep. About one we began to return, and now just as the mail goes, we are all back again in camp
for tea. And so ends the first day of active hostilities.

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GENERAL SIR GEORGE STEWART WHITE, V.C.,

G.C.I.E., G.C.B., G.C.S.I.

CHAPTER III

THE FIRST WEEK'S WAR

LADYSMITH, Thursday, October 19, 1899.

It is a week to-day since the Boers of the Transvaal and Free State began their combined invasion of Natal. So far all
action has been on their side. They have crept down the passes with their waggons and half-organised bands of
mounted infantry, and have now advanced within a short day's march of the two main British positions which protect the
whole colony. It will be seen on a map that North Natal forms a fairly regular isoceles triangle, having Charlestown,
Majuba, and Laing's Nek at the apex, the Drakensberg range separating it from the Free State on the one side, and the
Buffalo River with its lower hills separating it from the Transvaal on the other. A base may be drawn a few miles below
Ladysmith—say, from Oliver's Hoek Pass in the Drakensberg to the union of the Tugela River with the Buffalo.
Newcastle will then lie about thirty miles from the apex of the triangle, nearly equi-distant from both sides. Dundee is
about twelve miles from the middle point of the right side, and Ladysmith about the same distance from the middle point
of the base. Evidently a "tight place" for a comparatively small force when the frontiers to right and left are openly hostile
and can pour large bodies of men through all the passes in the sides and apex at will. That is exactly what the Boers
have spent the week in doing, and they have shown considerable skill in the process. They have occupied Charlestown,
Newcastle, and all the north of Natal almost to within reach of the guns at Dundee on the west and Ladysmith on the
east and centre. Yet as far as I can judge they have hardly lost a man, whereas they have gained an immense amount of
stores, food and forage, which were exactly the things they wanted. "Slim Piet" is the universal nickname for old Joubert
among friends and enemies alike, and so far he has well deserved it. For the Dutch "slim" stands half way between the
German "schlimm" and our description of young girls, and it means exactly what the Cockney means by "artful." Artful
Piet has managed well. He has given the Boers an appearance of triumph. Their flag waves where the English flag
waved before. The effect on the native mind, and on the spirits of his men is greater than people in England probably
think. Before the war the young Boers said they would be in Durban in a month, and the Kaffirs half believed it. Well,
they have got nearly a third of the way in a week.

But to-day they are brought within touch of British arms, and the question is whether they will get any further. So far
they have been unopposed. Their triumphs have been the bloodless capture of a passenger train, the capture of a few

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police, and the driving in of patrols who had strict orders to retire. So far we have sought only to draw them on. But
here and at Dundee we must make a stand, and all yesterday and this morning we have thought only of one question:
Will they venture to come on? They have numbers on their side—an advantage certainly of three to one, possibly more.
The rough country with its rocky flat-topped lines of hill is just suited for their method of warfare—to lie behind stones
and take careful shots at any one in range. Besides, if they are to do anything, they know they must be quick. The
Basutos are chanting their war-song on the Free State frontier. The British reinforcements are coming, and all irregulars
have a tendency to melt away if you keep them waiting. But on the other hand it is against Boer tradition to attack,
especially entrenched positions. Their artillery is probably far inferior to ours in training and skill, and they don't like
artillery in any case. Nor do they like the thought of Lancers and Hussars sweeping down upon their flanks wherever a
little bit of plain has to be crossed. So the chances of attack seem about equally balanced, and only the days can
answer that one question of ours: Will they come on?

Yesterday it seemed as though they were coming. The advance of two main columns from the passes in the north-west
had been fairly steady; and last night our outposts of the Natal Carbineers were engaged, as the 5th Lancers had been
the night before. Heavy firing was reported at any distance short of fifteen miles. There was no panic. The few ladies
who remain went riding or cycling along the dusty, blazing road which makes the town. The Zulu women in blankets and
beads walked in single file with the little black heads of babies peering out between their shoulder-blades, and roasting
in the sun. Huge waggon-loads of stores—compressed forage, compressed beef, jam, water-proof sheets, ammunition,
oil, blankets, sardines, and all the other necessaries of a soldier's existence—came lumbering up from the station behind
the long files of oxen urged slowly forward by savage outcries and lashes of hide. Orderlies were galloping in the joy of
their hearts. The band of the Gloucesters were practising scales in unison to slow time. Suddenly a kind of feeling came
into the air that something was happening. I noticed the waggon stopped; the oxen at once lay down in the dust; the
music ceased and was packed away. I met the Gordons coming into town and asking for their ground. Riding up the
mile or two to camp, I found the whole dusty plateau astir. Tents were melting away like snow. Kits lay all naked and
revealed upon the earth. The men were falling in. The waggons were going the wrong way round. The very
headquarters and staff were being cleared out. The whole camp was, in fact, in motion. It was coming down into the
town. In a few hours the familiar place was bare and deserted. I went up this morning and stood on Signal Hill where
the heliograph was working yesterday, just above the camp. The whole plain was a wilderness. Straw and paper
possessed it merely, except that here and there a destitute Kaffir groped among the débris in hopes of finding a shiny tin
pot for his furniture or some rag of old uniform to harmonise with his savage dress. In one corner of the empty iron huts
a few of the cavalry were still trying to carry off some remnants of forage. It was a pitiful sight, and yet the rapidity of
the change was impressive. If the Boers came in, they would find those tin huts very luxurious after their accustomed
bivouacs. Is it possible that tin huts might be their Capua?

The camp was thought incapable of defence. Artillery could command it from half a dozen hills. Whoever placed it there
was neither strategist nor humanitarian. It is like the bottom of a frying-pan with a low rim. The fire is hot, and sand is
frying. But, indeed, the whole of Ladysmith is like that. The flat-topped hills stand round it reflecting the heat, and in the
middle we are now all frying together, with sand for seasoning. The main ambulance is on the cricket ground. The
battalion tents are pitched among the rocks or by the river side, where Kaffirs bathe more often and completely than
you would otherwise suppose. The river water, by the way, is a muddy yellow now and leaves a deep deposit of Afric's
golden sand in your glass or basin. The headquarters staff has seized upon two empty houses, and can dine in peace.
The street is one yelling chaos of oxen in waggons and oxen loose, galloping horses, sheep, ammunition mules, savages,
cycles, and the British soldier. He, be sure, preserves his wonted calm, adapts himself to oxen as naturally as to camels,
puts in a little football when he can, practises alliteration's artful aid upon the name of the Boers, and trusts to his orders
to pull him through. His orders are likely to be all right now, for Colonel Ward has just been put in command of the
whole town, and already I notice a method in the oxen, to say nothing of the mules. What is it all but a huge military
tournament to be pulled together, and got up to time?

This morning most people expected the attack would begin. I rode five miles out before breakfast to see what might be
seen, but there were only a few Lancers pricking about by threes, and never a Boer or any such thing. So we have
waited all day, and nothing has happened till this afternoon the rumour comes with authority that a train has been
captured at Elands Laagte, about sixteen miles on the way to Dundee. The railway stopped running trains beyond there
yesterday, and had better have stopped altogether. Anyhow, the line of communication between us and the splendid
little brigade at Dundee is broken now. Dundee is pretty nearly fifty miles N.N.E. of this. The camp is happily on a
stronger position than ours, and not mixed up with the town. But at present it is practically besieged, and no one can say
how long the siege of Ladysmith also will be delayed. For the moment, it seems just possible that the great force, which
we vaguely hear is coming out from England (all English news is hopelessly vague), will have to send the bulk of its
troops to fight up Natal for our relief. But the south of Natal having few rocks is not suited for Boer warfare. When the
Boers boasted they were coming to Durban, a wit replied: "Then you will have to bring the stones with you." For a Boer
much prefers to have a comforting stone in front of him in the day of battle. In these districts every hill is for him a
natural fortress. His hope is that we shall venture into the mountains; ours that he will venture down to the plains. So far
hope's flattery has kept us fairly well apart. The day after to-morrow is now fixed by popular judgment for battle and
attack. But only one thing is certain: we can stand still if we choose, and the Boers cannot.

To be under martial law, as we now are, does not make much difference to the ordinary man, but to the ordinary
criminal it appears slightly advantageous. For his case is very likely to be overlooked in the press of military offences,
and it is doubtful if any civil suits can be brought. At all events, a legal quarrel I had with a farmer about some horses

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has vanished into thin air; and so, indeed, have the horses. The worst offenders now are possible spies. A few Dutch
have been arrested, but the commonest cases are out-of-work Kaffirs, who are wandering in swarms over the country,
coming down from Johannesburg and the collieries, and naturally finding it rather hard to give account of themselves.
The peculiarity of the trials which I have attended has been that if a Kaffir could give the name of his father it was taken
as a sufficient guarantee of respectability With one miserable Bushman, for instance—a child's caricature of man—it
was really going hard till at last he managed to explain that his father's name was Nicodemus Africa, and then every one
looked satisfied, and he left the court without a stain upon his character.

So we live from day to day. The air is full of rumours. One can see them grow along the street. One traces them down.
Perhaps one finds an atom of truth somewhere at the root of them. One puts that atom into a telegram. The military
censor cuts it out with unfailing politeness, and a good day's work is done. Heat, dust, and a weekly deluge with
stupendous thunder complete the scene.

CHAPTER IV

BATTLE OF ELANDS LAAGTE

LADYSMITH, October 22, 1899.

It was a fair morning yesterday, cool after rain, the thin clouds sometimes letting the sun look through. At half-past ten I
was some six or seven miles out along the Newcastle road—a road in these parts being merely a worn track over the
open veldt, distinguishable only by the ruts and mud. Close on the left were high and shapely hills, like Welsh mountains,
but on the right the country was more open. A Mr. Malcolm's farm stood in the middle of a waving plain, with a few
fields, aloe hedges, and poplars. The kraal of his Kaffir labourers was near it, and about a mile away the plain ended in
a low ridge of rocky "kopjes," which ran to join the mountainous ground on the left at a kind of "nek" or low pass over
which the railway runs. Beyond that low ridge lay Elands Laagte, an important railway station with a few collieries close
by, a store, a hotel, and some houses.

The Boers had occupied it two days before, had captured a train there, and torn up the rail in two places, making a
number of prisoners and seizing 100 head of cattle and quantities of other private stores and the luggage going to
Dundee. Early in the morning we had gone out with four companies of the Manchesters in an armoured train with an
ordinary train behind it, a battery of Natal Field Artillery, and the Imperial Light Horse under Colonel Scott Chisholme,
to reconnoitre with a view to repairing the line. They seized the station and released a number of prisoners, but were
compelled to withdraw by three heavy Nordenfeldt guns, which the Boers had posted on a hill about 2,500 yards
beyond the station. At half-past ten they had reached the point I describe, and were very slowly coming back towards
Ladysmith, the trains moving backwards, and the cavalry walking on each side the line. The point is called Modder's
Spruit, from some early Dutchman, and there is a little station there, the first out from Ladysmith town. At that moment
another train was seen coming up with the 1st Devons, and within an hour a fourth arrived with five companies of the
Gordons. The 42nd Field Battery then came, and the 21st later; the 5th Lancers with a few 5th Dragoon Guards, and a
large contingent of Natal mounted volunteers. That was our force. It took up a strong and fairly concealed position
behind a rise in the road to the left of the railway and waited. Meantime the Boer scouts crept along that rocky ridge on
our right front and down into the plain, firing into us at long range, quite without effect.

At half-past one General French, who had taken command, sent out a few Lancers to watch our left, and a large force
of mixed cavalry to the right. By a long circuit these swept up the whole length of the ridge and cleared out the Boer
sharpshooters, who could be seen galloping away over the top. The infantry then detrained and advanced across the
plain and up the ridge in extended order, half a battery meantime driving out a small Boer party, which was firing upon
our Lancers on our left.

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PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF ELANDS LAAGTE

When we reached the top of that long ridge, we found it broad as well as long, and we were moving rapidly across it
when, with the usual whirr and crash and scream, one of the enemy's big shells fell in the midst of our right centre, killing
two horses at a gun. It was at once followed by another, and a dozen or two more. They had our range exactly, and the
art of knowing what was going on behind the hill, but though the shells burst all right and hot fragments or bullets went
shrieking through the midst of us, I did not see anything but horses actually struck. I think six or seven horses were
killed at that place, and later on I heard of a bugler having his head cut off, and two or three others killed by shell, but
otherwise I believe the artillery did us no damage, though to most men it is more terrifying than rifle fire. When we
reached the edge of the ridge we looked across a broad low valley, with one small wave in it, to the enemy's main
position on some rocky hills nearly 4,000 yards away. The place was very strong and well chosen.

Opposite our right ran a long high ridge covered with rocks and leading up to a rocky plateau. In their centre was a
pointed hill, at the foot of which stood their camp, with tents and waggons. Opposite our left was a small detached
kopje, and beyond that a fairly flat plain, with a river running through it, and the railway beyond Elands Laagte Station.
Their three guns stood on the rocky ridge to our right of their camp—two together half-way down, one a little higher
up. Flash—flash—they went, and then came the whirr, the crash, and the screaming fragments.

Suddenly our guns opened in answer from our right centre, and we could watch the shrapnel bursting right over their
gunners' heads. They say the gunners were German. At all events, they were brave fellows, and worked the guns with
extraordinary skill and courage. The official account admits that they returned several times to their posts after being
driven out by our shell. The afternoon was passing, and if we were to take the place before dark we could not spare
time to shake it with our artillery much longer. At about half-past four the infantry were ordered to advance, the
Gordons and Manchesters on the right, the Devons on the left. They went down the long slope and across the valley
with perfect intervals and line, much better than they go in the hollows of the old Fox Hills.

In the advance the Gordons and Manchesters gradually changed direction half right and crept up towards that plateau
on the right of the ridge, so as to take the enemy in flank. The Devons went straight forward, coming into infantry fire as
they crossed that low wave of ground in the middle of the valley. On the further slope they were ordered to lie down
and wait till the flanking movement was developed. Happily the slope, as is usual in South Africa, was thickly spotted
over with great ant-hills, beneath which the ant-eater digs his den. Ant-heaps, hardened almost to brick, make excellent
cover, and we lay down behind them on any bit of rock we could find, the fire being very hot, and the Mauser bullets
making their unpleasant whiffle as they passed. I think the first man hit was a private, who got a ball through his head by
the ear. He was carried away, but died before he got off the field. A young officer was struck soon afterwards, and
then the bearers began to be busy. There were far too few of them, and no one could find the ambulance carts. As a
matter of fact they had not left Ladysmith—twelve miles at least away. Most of the wounded tried to creep back out of
fire. Some lay quite still. I heard only two or three call out for help. Meantime the rest were keeping up a steady fire, not
by volleys, but as each could sight a Boer among the rocks, and my own belief is that very few Boers were hit that way.

Climbing up a heap of loose stones a little to the right of the Devons, I could now see the Boers at the top of their
position in the centre, moving about rapidly, taking cover, resting their rifles on the stones, and firing both at us and at
the men who were pushing up the slope threatening their flank. Meantime the artillery pumped iron and lead upon them
without mercy. Their own guns were quite silenced about this time, being unable to stand the combined shell and rifle

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fire. But the ordinary Boers—the armed and mounted peasants—still clung to their rocks as though nothing could drive
them out.

One big man in black I watched for what seemed a very long time. He was standing right against the sky line,
sometimes waving his arm, apparently to give directions. Shells burst over his head, and bullets must have been thick
round him. Once or twice he fell, as though slipping on the rocks, for the rain had begun again. But he always
reappeared, till at last shrapnel exploded right in his face, and he sank together like a dropped rag. Just after that the
Manchesters and Gordons began to force their way along the top of the ridge on the Boers' left. They had the
dismounted Imperial Light Horse with them, and it was there that the loss was most terrible. Sometimes the advance
hardly seemed to move, sometimes it rushed forward, and then appeared to swing back again. It was six o'clock, rain
was falling in torrents, and it was getting dark. Perhaps the Gordons suffered most. Fourteen officers were killed and
wounded there, and next day the killed men lay thick among the rocks. The Boer prisoners say the Gordon kilts made
them easy marks. But the Light Horse lost, too—lost their Colonel, Scott Chisholme, who had been so eager for their
success. Still the Boers kept up their terrible fire, and the attack crept forward, rock by rock. At the same time the
Devons were called on to advance, and, getting up from the ant-hills without a moment's pause, they strode forward to
the foot of the hill, keeping up an incessant fire as they went. Then we heard the bugler sounding the charge high up on
our right, and we could just see the flank attack rushing forward and cheering. The Boers were galloping away or
running from the top. The Devons also sounded the charge and rushed up the front of the position, but from that isolated
hill on our left they met so obstinate a fire that the order for magazine firing was given, and for a few minutes the rifles
rattled without a second's pause, in a long roar of fire. Then, with a wild cheer, the Devons cleared the position. It is
due to them to say that they were first at the guns. Meantime, the "Cease Fire!" had sounded several times on the
summit, but the firing did not cease. I don't know why it was. Perhaps the Boers were still resisting in parts. Certainly
many of our men were drunk with excitement. "Wipe out Majuba!" was a constant cry. But the Boers had gone.

The remnants of them were struggling to get away in the twilight over a bit of rocky plain on our left. There the Dragoon
Guards got them, and three times went through. A Dragoon Guards corporal who was there tells me the Boers fell off
their horses and rolled among the rocks, hiding their heads in their arms and calling for mercy—calling to be shot,
anything to escape the stab of those terrible lances. But not many escaped. "We just gave them a good dig as they lay,"
were the corporal's words. Next day most of the lances were bloody.

The victory was ours. We had gained a stony and muddy little hill strewn with the bodies of dead and wounded
peasants, clerks, lawyers, and other kinds of men. Most were from Johannesburg. Nearly all spoke English like their
native language. In one corner on the slope of the hill towards their little camp and waggons I counted fourteen dead
together. In one of the tents were three dead men, all killed by the same shell, apparently whilst asleep. Yet I do not
think there were more than thirty actually killed among the rocks in all. It is true that darkness fell rapidly, and the rain
was blinding; but I was nearly two hours on the ground moving about. The wounded lay very thick, groaning and
appealing for help. In coming down I nearly trod on the upturned white face of an old white-bearded man. He was lying
quite silent, with a kind of dignity. We asked who he was. He said: "I am Kock, the father of Judge Kock. No, I am not
the commandant. He is the commandant." But the old man was wrong. He himself had been in command, though
instead of fighting he had read the Bible and prayed. One bullet had passed through his shoulder, another through his
groin. So he lay still and read no more. Near him was a boy with a hand just a mixture of shreds and bones and blood.
But he too was very quiet, and only asked for a handkerchief to bind it together. Others were gradually dying. Many
were not found till daylight. The dead of both sides lay unburied till Monday.

In the mud and stones just above the captured guns, General French stood giving directions for the bivouac, and
dictating a message to Sir George White praising the troops, especially the infantry who had been commanded by
Colonel Ian Hamilton. The assemble kept sounding over the hill, and Gordons tried to sift themselves from
Manchesters, and Light Horse from Devons. All were shouting and questioning and calling to each other in the dark.
Soon they settled down; the Boers had left scores of saddles, coats, and Kaffir blankets, provisions, too, water-bottles,
chickens, and in one case a flask of carbolic disinfectant, which a British soldier analysed as "furrin wine." So, on the
whole, the fellows made themselves fairly comfortable in spite of the cold and wet. Then I felt my way down over the
rocks, taking care, if possible, not to tread on anything human, and then sought out the difficult twelve-mile track to
Ladysmith over the veldt and hills, lighted towards midnight by a waning and clouded moon.

CHAPTER V

BATTLE OF TINTA INYONI

LADYSMITH, October 27, 1899.

If you want to "experience a shock," as the doctors say, be with the head of a column advancing leisurely along a
familiar road only six miles from camp, and have a shell flung almost at your feet from a neighbouring mountain top. That
was my fortune about the breakfast time of peaceable citizens last Tuesday morning. A squadron of Lancers and some
of the Natal Carbineers were in front. Just behind me a battery was rumbling along. A little knot of the staff was close

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by, and we were all just preparing to halt. We stood on the Newcastle road, north of the town, not far from our first
position at the Elands Laagte battle of the Saturday before. The road is close to the railway there, and I was watching
an engine and truck going down with a white-flag flying, bringing back poor Colonel Chisholme's body for burial.
Suddenly on the left from the top of a mountain side beyond a long rocky ridge I saw the orange flash of a big gun. The
next moment came the familiar buzz and scream of a great shell, the crash, the squealing fragments, the dust splashing up
all round us as they fell. I have never seen men and horses gallop faster than in our rapid right-wheel over the open
ground towards a Kaffir kraal. I think only one horse was badly hurt, but at no military tournament have I seen artillery
move in such excellent style. It was all over in a minute. The Boers must have measured the range to a yard, and just
have kept that gun loaded and waiting.

But in tactics jokes may be mistakes. That shot revealed the enemy's position. Within ten minutes our gunners had snipt
the barbed wire fences along the railway, had dashed their guns across, and were dragging them up that low rocky
ridge—say, 300ft. to 400ft. high—which had now so suddenly become our front and fighting position. Three field
batteries went up, and close behind them came the Gloucesters on the right, a few companies of the second 60th
(K.R.R.) the Liverpools and the Devons in order on the centre and left. On our right we had some of the 19th Hussars
and 5th Lancers; on our left a large mixed force of the mounted Natal Volunteers, who were soon strongly engaged in a
small valley at the end of the ridge, and suffered a good deal all day. But the chief work and credit lay with our guns. Till
they got into position, found the range and began to fire, the enemy's shells kept dropping over the ridge and plumping
into the ground. None were so successful as the first, and only few of them burst, but shells are very unpleasant, and it
was a relief when at the second or third shot from our batteries w...